Eugenics

Last updated 23 April 2017

Eugenics is the science of improving a population by controlled breeding to increase the occurrence of desirable heritable characteristics.

Hitler gave eugenics a bad name. In 1969 the American Eugenics Society ended publication of its journal Eugenics Quarterly and replaced it with Social Biology, and the British Eugenics Society ended publication of the Eugenics Review and replaced it with th Journal of Biological Science. In 1963 at UCL The Francis Galton Laboratory of National Eugenics became the The Galton Laboratory of the Department of Human Genetics & Biometry. In 1972 the American Eugenics Society changed its name to The Society for the Study of Social Biology and dissociated itself from eugenics. In 1988 the British Eugenics Society changed its name to the Galton Institute.

The modern objectives are actually highly desirable: eugenics can help eliminate genetic diseases, reduce personality disorders and increase intelligence via human biotechnology. Lynn (2001) suggests the following new eugenics of human biotechnology: artificial insemination by donor (AID); egg donation; prenatal diagnosis of fetuses with genetic diseases and disorders and termination of the pregnancies where these are identified; embryo selection, consisting of the ascertainment of the genetic characteristics of embryos grown in vitro and the selection for implantation of those with genetically desirable characteristics; cloning, consisting of the production of genetically identical copies of individuals; and genetic engineering, used here in the sense of the insertion of new genes.

There currently exists a dysgenic decline in human intelligence in the West due to a negative correlation between fertility and intelligence (Woodley 2015). Intelligence (in adults) is 80% heritable, yet we spend a lot of money on education and nutrition, and almost none on improving the human genome. Herrnstein and Murray (1994) found that when they moved the average IQ down statistically by just 3 points, from 100 to 97, all social problems were exacerbated: the number of women chronically dependent on welfare increased by 7%; illegitimacy increased by 8%; men interviewed in jail increased by 12%; and the number of permanent high school dropouts increased by nearly 15%.

Today, of course, we are in a better position than ever before to implement a positive eugenics for the benefit of mankind (van Court 2004; Wood 2015; Murgia 2015; Max 2017), and the Chinese have taken the lead (Miller 2013).